Translators, Translations and Beyond

The translation industry has been evolved during the last twenty years, and with more than 46.7 million of Spanish-speakers, which account for 15.4% of the total population in the U.S., there has been a need to address the needs of this population segment by way of translations, and the so-called “trans-creations.” Many U.S. based marketing companies have devised strategies to approach the Hispanic/Latino communities across the nation, having Fortune 500 companies targeting the Latino audience every year as customers. According to the US Census Bureau, Hispanics in the nation are still very young, with a median age of 27.7 years compared to 36.8 years of the whole population. Thus, this creates a great opportunity to create advertisement and literary works catered to this minority segment. The question here is, however, how good of a job are we doing in creating original or derivative works in proper Spanish? Are these marketing campaigns and advertisements culturally-sensitive? Do we really get our message across?